The Scaling Tech Podcast

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a topic that sparks many debates. Everyone is curious about the future of AI, whether it can generate original ideas, and if it will ever replace humans. But the crucial question we should be asking is, how we can best work with AI to augment our own capabilities.  We dive into […]

Generative AI has moved beyond being just a buzzword—it’s now the new business norm. But while it holds a big promise to businesses across different industries, the road to adoption is not without challenges. This week, we’re diving into the complexities of generative AI with our expert guest, Sid Rao. Sid is the CEO and […]

Jen is a highly sought-after leadership coach, entrepreneur, brain tumor survivor, mom, podcast host, writer, and founder of Plucky, where she guides CEOs, entrepreneurs, and leaders across various levels to foster healthy dynamics and improve work-life balance for everyone. Jen has empowered professionals at over 200 companies, including industry giants like Google, Facebook, Slack, The […]

Mergers and acquisitions can be either the most exciting or the most daunting time in an engineering leader’s career. But as long as you prepare and take a strategic approach, you will be good to go! Our guest today is Mona Sabet. She is incredibly experienced in M&A transactions for tech companies, and she’ll share […]

There’s no better feeling than leading a high-performing team that consistently exceeds expectations and achieves remarkable results. Sound too good to be true? It doesn’t have to be. Today, Arin welcomes Sarah Milstein. Sarah is a seasoned leader in tech and media, with experience as VP of Engineering at Daily, ConvertKit, and in Engineering Leadership […]

As leaders, it’s our responsibility to unlock our team’s full potential. Or, as our guest nicely puts it, “Life is too short to lead an average team.” So, today, we’re diving into strategies to help you avoid this pitfall in your company and, instead, empower your software engineering team to thrive. Join us for a […]

There’s a fine line between taking ownership and overstepping boundaries. So, how do you know where that line is? This week’s guest, Wes Kao, sheds some light on this topic. Wes is a well-known entrepreneur, speaker, coach, and advisor. She’s the Co-founder of Maven, an ad tech company that raised $25 million from First Round […]

Diversity in tech is essential for driving innovation and solving new, complex problems in new and effective ways. That’s why we need to intentionally create inclusive and diverse environments where our devs can have the space to thrive and bring their unique perspectives to the table. Today, our guest is Ben Parisot. Ben is the […]

There’s an ongoing discussion about the potential of voice technology and whether it’s really as revolutionary as we thought it to be. The answer is yes—it’s a matter of exploring its unique potential, not just copying existing technologies.  Tobias Dengel, a technology leader and author of a book about voice technology, joins us today in […]

Agile is more than just a buzzword. It’s an intuitive methodology that offers practical solutions to enterprises by simply breaking a big thing into smaller, more manageable chunks. Today on the Scaling Tech podcast, Arin welcomes David Asch to take a deep dive into agile methods. David is currently the Founder of 10xPrinciples, a consulting […]

David and Arin reflect on the lessons learned from the past nine episodes of the Scaling Tech Podcast in our third season. We recap lessons from all of our guests, covering topics that include mentoring engineering managers, scaling agile, software estimation and predictability, software security and site reliability engineering, engineering team health and offsites, data […]

Forecasting is inherently probabilistic – meaning that we cannot say anything definitively about the future, we can only give the probability that something may happen. This is intrinsic to software development but a hard concept to convey to those who just want to know “when will the work be done?”. In this conversation we speak […]

Scaling technology is one thing, but scaling technical teams is quite another. In this episode, we talk with author Jurgen Appelo about his “unFIX” pattern for scaling agile teams. We talk about the challenges of scaling agile teams, team empowerment, innovation, managers and mentoring. Jurgen is author of multiple books, including “Management 3.0” and most […]

How do you engineer your systems to be highly reliable, especially in a regulated environment like healthcare? Dr Vladyslav Ukis joins us on this episode of the Scaling Tech Podcast to explain the concepts of Site Reliability Engineering, how to choose and manage Service Level Objectives and Error Budgets, and how to combine it with […]

Building a good team is like solving a puzzle, as our guest Allison McMillan describes in this episode of the Scaling Tech Podcast. Allison is an engineering leadership consultant who works as a fractional VP of Engineering, and also consults to companies on Engineering Team Health and highly effective Team Offsites. Allison shares with us […]

What is the future of AI, and how will it affect the way that we conduct work? In this episode we speak with an expert in the field: Vijay Parthasarathy, Head of AI and ML at Zoom. Vijay will draw on his experiences in AI at Zoom, Meta, and Apple, as well as the unique […]

In today’s world, data is no longer the purview of data scientists alone. Data is Everybody’s Business, which is also the title of Professor Barb Wixom’s new book from MIT Press. On Episode 24, we learn how to monetize data via Improving, Wrapping, and Selling. Barb talks with us about acceptable data use, and shares […]

To achieve software resilience, you must design in security, and treat it as part of software quality. In episode 23 of the Scaling Tech Podcast, author and security expert Kelly Shortridge shares with hosts Arin Sime and David Alfaro exactly how to do that. They cover topics such as the philosophy of software resilience, Evaluation and […]

Most of us have a love/hate relationship with software estimation. Estimation is an important skill, but it’s often misused and misunderstood, especially in unhealthy team cultures. When used properly, it can be a powerful tool for team communication and to enable good business decision making. In this episode of the Scaling Tech Podcast, we speak […]

Getting promoted into management can be the most exciting and terrifying moment of a person’s career. On episode 21 of the Scaling Tech Podcast, hosts Arin Sime and David Alfaro speak with Leadership Coach Jen Dary about her work training and mentoring managers, and the particularly difficult aspects of being a first time manager.

David and Arin reflect on the lessons learned from the nine episodes of the Scaling Tech Podcast that made up our second season. These include some of the best advice from our guests on topics like engineering management, remote teams, team culture, leadership, infrastructure management, and hiring and onboarding.

How did you learn to become an engineering manager? If you’re like most people, you were largely self taught. Engineering managers are often promoted from senior engineering roles and they have probably not been taught best practices in managing teams. In this episode of the Scaling Tech Podcast, we talk with engineering leader and author […]

The notion of stable teams is fundamental to a lot of management advice, but unrealistic. Change is constant, and our teams are no exception. Therefore it’s necessary to be more thoughtful and proactive about team change instead of taking a purely reactive stance. Heidi Helfand is the author of “Dynamic Reteaming”, and she shares with […]

It’s one thing to be able to work well in a remote team, but what about leading remote teams? Leading a remote team requires extra attention on team culture, meeting rules, servant leadership, and coaching and mentoring your team. Chris Dyer is the co-author of “Remote Work” and an international keynote speaker, consultant and best […]

What do you do when you’re told “No”? We have all dealt with legacy applications that we want to upgrade or replace. Sometimes upper management does not approve of your modernization plans, and when that happens, what should you do next? David and Arin speak with The CTO Advisor, Keith Townsend, on the latest in […]